Vizyon/Moteck Motors?

mickger

I ordered a Moteck Diseqc Motor SG2100A from Tony and got a Vizyon Sg-8120 instead. The Vizyon looks very similar to the Moteck. Is the install procedure the same for these two? Are there any links to help me with the install procedure? Tia

watty

Isn't there a manual with a table of dish declinations for the motor elevation?

Other than that the install for all motors is the same. You need to enter your own co-ordinates into the Setbox after selecting "USALS" or "GoToX" mode.

See the USALS install mode here
http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=How+to+install+and+align+a+Diseqc+motor

This wiki written by posters here.

fat-tony

mickger wrote: »

I ordered a Moteck Diseqc Motor SG2100A from Tony and got a Vizyon Sg-8120 instead. The Vizyon looks very similar to the Moteck. Is the install procedure the same for these two? Are there any links to help me with the install procedure? Tia

I think Tony's website makes it clear that it's a Vizyon that he is supplying and that it's a Moteck re-brand.
If you didn't get a manual with it contact Tony - or I can copy my Moteck version and send it to you if you are stuck. The bend on the motor shaft is usually 30 degrees, so you need to take that into account when setting the dish declination.

fat-tony (no relation )

mickger

fat-tony wrote: »

I think Tony's website makes it clear that it's a Vizyon that he is supplying and that it's a Moteck re-brand.
If you didn't get a manual with it contact Tony - or I can copy my Moteck version and send it to you if you are stuck. The bend on the motor shaft is usually 30 degrees, so you need to take that into account when setting the dish declination.

fat-tony (no relation )

Just found the manual when i emptied everything in the box. I see on the site its a re-brand my mistake for not being more aware of that. Gonna give setting it up a go this afternoon.

mickger

Went about setting up my motor today but couldn't get any signal on any Sats at all. I focused on Hotbird and tried to adjust elevation and the dish east to west but still no joy. When i look at the dish the elevation angle looks wrong to me even though i set it at 32 degress (40- declination angle) I'm using Usasls to set it up and the motor is moving the dish. Any other tips for me to get it right? Tia

snaps

you shouldnt be setting it up on hotbird. Where are you? East Ireland you should use 5west, west ireland use 8west. The motor elevation usually is elevated to your longitude. how you set the dish elevation is another kettle of fish but your manual should explain how to calculate this. You have to set the motor to zero when you set up on your highest (Due south) satellite. so im at 9west, So i use 8west as my set up satellite. I usually enter my long and latitude on the motorised setup on receiver, then goto zero. then twist the motor on the mounting pole until i find 8west. then i go back to receiver and then select 8west, the motor will just move very slightly, then realign motor until best signal is received. Tighten all the motor bolts up. then move to the far east, usually 42east and check signals, then go furhtest west, usually 30 west and check signal. If these sats dont come in you most probably have a mount thats not square vertically or horizontally.

mickger

snaps wrote: »

you shouldnt be setting it up on hotbird. Where are you? East Ireland you should use 5west, west ireland use 8west. The motor elevation usually is elevated to your longitude. how you set the dish elevation is another kettle of fish but your manual should explain how to calculate this. You have to set the motor to zero when you set up on your highest (Due south) satellite. so im at 9west, So i use 8west as my set up satellite. I usually enter my long and latitude on the motorised setup on receiver, then goto zero. then twist the motor on the mounting pole until i find 8west. then i go back to receiver and then select 8west, the motor will just move very slightly, then realign motor until best signal is received. Tighten all the motor bolts up. then move to the far east, usually 42east and check signals, then go furhtest west, usually 30 west and check signal. If these sats dont come in you most probably have a mount thats not square vertically or horizontally.

Thanks for the advice. I'm in Waterford so i'll set it up on 5 west. I went at it this morning and managed to get hotbird at 13east with a max signal of 70% also got 16East and Astra 2a/b/c/d but couldn't get Astra 19 east. All the sats i did get were about 65% signal. I was wondering is my LNB too old? Its a 0.6db and about 5 years old, would this account for the 65% signal on the Sats i am getting? I'm gonna set it up on 5 west later and hopefully i'll get all the sats after i do that.

watty

not an LNB problem.

The signal LEVEL is fairly meaningless. Quality is a better measure. Many MMICs for IF amp internal to LNB have some form of AGC.

You may need to set Skew to zero. A fixed dish has no inherent skew so the LNB needs skewed quite a bit at 28E. If you watch LNB as this rotates you'll see the LNB seems to "lean" or skew on its own.

If the motor elevation is not correct, then as you rotate from point where you set dish declination correctly you lose signal. The motor scale is either directly your degrees north or 90- degrees North. Then a table in the manual gives dish declination. tweak declination at 5W and then tweak centering of dish on arm at 42E where the satellite elevation starts to be more rotation of dish on arm and dish declination becomes more azimuth.

Make sure pole for motor is 100% vertical.

You need a meter, not sat level for these:
First make sure you have correct setting on MOTOR elevation scale. Not dish elevation. Do not change.
Then put rough dish elevation/declination and centre of rotation on arm with motor set to 5W. Both these need fine tuned later.
Then on any satellite, but 30W or 42W is best manually rotate whole motor assembly to peak signal, starting with motor assembly pointing true North/South. Don't change this again.

Fine tuning:
So at 5W adjust declination, but NOT dish rotation on arm for peak.
At 42E adjust rotation of dish on arm for peak, but never elevation/declination.

repeat to be sure.

If it won't track 42E, 28E, 19E, 13E 5E, 5W, 8W, 15W, 30W and 45W then either the pole is not straight or dish was not very centre of rotation on arm. Try repeak at 42E and 30W by rotate whole assembly inc. motor on pole. If the peak (scratch mark across bracket and pole) is not the same at both positions then something is wrong.

Make sure your own location is N and W in setbox menu and not accidentally 5E

Finally on weakest channel/Satellite you want adjust LNB skew for highest QUALITY, not signal level.

The bigger the dish the harder this is.

mickger

Went through each sat there now and only get the 3 sats i mentioned in my previous post. I'll try tomorrow if its not raining pointing the dish at 5w and then 42E. I'm surprised i'm not getting 19E as it between two sats i am getting. Thanks for the advice Watty and Snaps.

watty

Some receivers you have to select GotoX/Usuals or nothing or DISEQ position for each satellite position.

snaps

your 1st motorised setup is always the hardest and a lot of it trial and error. Ive been up a ladder today realigning a 1m dish on a motor that had been knocked out in more ways than one by the storms last week. got it arcing perfect in the end from 30w to 42east. infact your man said it had never been this good to start! Probably be back there in a months time as the wind will knock it out again. the poor bugger has to have the dish up high as he has neighbours trees in the way of the main satellites.

Good luck mate.

The "making sure the mounting pole is dead vertical and plumb" is the most common reason why dishes dont arc correctly. Even if the mount is slightly off it will knock out certain satellites, usually either west of south or east of south!

joe250

HI
I am living in waterford and can help you setup motor if you want.
Pm me.

mickger

watty wrote: »

not an LNB problem.

The signal LEVEL is fairly meaningless. Quality is a better measure. Many MMICs for IF amp internal to LNB have some form of AGC.

You may need to set Skew to zero. A fixed dish has no inherent skew so the LNB needs skewed quite a bit at 28E. If you watch LNB as this rotates you'll see the LNB seems to "lean" or skew on its own.

If the motor elevation is not correct, then as you rotate from point where you set dish declination correctly you lose signal. The motor scale is either directly your degrees north or 90- degrees North. Then a table in the manual gives dish declination. tweak declination at 5W and then tweak centering of dish on arm at 42E where the satellite elevation starts to be more rotation of dish on arm and dish declination becomes more azimuth.

Make sure pole for motor is 100% vertical.

You need a meter, not sat level for these:
First make sure you have correct setting on MOTOR elevation scale. Not dish elevation. Do not change.
Then put rough dish elevation/declination and centre of rotation on arm with motor set to 5W. Both these need fine tuned later.
Then on any satellite, but 30W or 42W is best manually rotate whole motor assembly to peak signal, starting with motor assembly pointing true North/South. Don't change this again.

Fine tuning:
So at 5W adjust declination, but NOT dish rotation on arm for peak.
At 42E adjust rotation of dish on arm for peak, but never elevation/declination.

repeat to be sure.

If it won't track 42E, 28E, 19E, 13E 5E, 5W, 8W, 15W, 30W and 45W then either the pole is not straight or dish was not very centre of rotation on arm. Try repeak at 42E and 30W by rotate whole assembly inc. motor on pole. If the peak (scratch mark across bracket and pole) is not the same at both positions then something is wrong.

Make sure your own location is N and W in setbox menu and not accidentally 5E

Finally on weakest channel/Satellite you want adjust LNB skew for highest QUALITY, not signal level.

The bigger the dish the harder this is.

Gonna give this another try in the morning and from what Watty says above i need to, i think.

1. Go to 5w and Tweak Declination of Dish
2. Go to 42E and Tweak Centering of Dish on Arm coming from Motor.
3. Check Pole to make sure its still vertical.
4.Go to 42W and manually rotate motor on mounting pole to peak signal.
5. Fine tune the declination at 5W only.
6. At 42E Adjust Rotation of dish on arm coming from Motor.

Hopefully this will get me up and running on all sats.

watty

snaps wrote: »

The "making sure the mounting pole is dead vertical and plumb" is the most common reason why dishes dont arc correctly. Even if the mount is slightly off it will knock out certain satellites, usually either west of south or east of south!

My mounting pole is open both ends on a pair of brackets mounted to a shed wall. To avoid brackets coming loose with wind load, I fitted studs through the wall completely with washers and nuts on inside of shed.

The bottom bracket was aligned with very large spirit level vertically (along axis of wall).

I dropped cord with weight down the middle of the pipe, and centred the top, then fine adjusted the pipe vertically on axis at right angles to wall (only the bracket at the wall adjust the other axis.

I don't believe a single mount bracket is strong enough nor adjustable easily on the wall axis. An all in one bracket for a fixed dish is no good at all as you are depending on flatness and verticalness of wall for axis at right angles.

What ever mount/pole the motor goes on must be adjustable in both directions and easy to verify. Thus a pair of brackets about 1m apart and a very large good builder's level as a minimum.

A 3" or 4" pole mounted on the ground in concrete needs about 4 stays to keep it vertical while concrete sets. You need a bigger hole and more in the ground the taller the pole or bigger the dish is.

A 1m dish on exposed site can have several tonnes wind load in a storm, the pole acts a lever to magnify this force. When I joined the BBC Comms, Dept an early piece of training was to calculate at what wind speed a landrover with a 1m dish on would topple over.

fat-tony

watty wrote: »

A 1m dish on exposed site can have several tonnes wind load in a storm, the pole acts a lever to magnify this force. When I joined the BBC Comms, Dept an early piece of training was to calculate at what wind speed a landrover with a 1m dish on would topple over.

And the answer is? :D

Seriously though, my own motorised setup (1.1m dish) has taken a hammering in recent weeks, so I'm looking to upgrade my single bracket, to a double set of "T" or "K" brackets with a 2" pole between them to mount the motor. Any sources of this type of bracket you can point me to Watty? I've browsed Tony's site and he doesn't seem to do this type. I'm Wicklow based. Ta.

mickger

mickger wrote: »

Gonna give this another try in the morning and from what Watty says above i need to, i think.

1. Go to 5w and Tweak Declination of Dish
2. Go to 42E and Tweak Centering of Dish on Arm coming from Motor.
3. Check Pole to make sure its still vertical.
4.Go to 42W and manually rotate motor on mounting pole to peak signal.
5. Fine tune the declination at 5W only.
6. At 42E Adjust Rotation of dish on arm coming from Motor.

Hopefully this will get me up and running on all sats.

Just an update on this. I did the first step went to 5W and tweaked the Declination. Then the rains came done and had to stop at that. So as it stands now i'm getting 5W and 0.8W at about 70% but none of the East sats are now coming in. So its to 42E next to Centering the dish on the arm from the motor. Will by doing this just put 5w and 0.8W out again?

fat-tony

What Watty is talking about is fine tuning/tweaking the setup on 42E.

I think you have a more fundamental set-up issue. IF you have the dish centred exactly on the motor arm, and the motor scale set up at 53 degrees (or 37 on the elevation scale if your motor doesn't have a latitude scale), then you can start by ensuring the motor is set at zero and by pointing the whole assembly at due South or as accurately as you can.
Then you ensure your coordinates are set in your set top box - should be 53. something N and 6/7/8. something W. Using the USALS function in the box let the motor drive to 5W. This should be a slight movement to the left looking from behind the dish. If the dish moves a lot, then the motor wasn't at zero to begin with.

Then you move the whole motor assembly on the mounting pole until you pick up 5W. Tweak the dish declination (not the motor) until you get the best signal. Tighten up the pole and dish bolts. Turn the LNB in its holder until you get the maximum quality - it should be pretty straight for 5W.
At this stage you should be able to drive the dish via USALS and get 1W, 5W, 12.5W, 10E, 13E easily. After this comes the fine tuning, but you need to get the fundamentals right. Persevere - with patience it will come, grasshopper:D:D

watty

With USALS you don't need to try for "true south" the first motor positioning on the pole can in reality be done at any position. Extreme west or East has advantage of reducing error due dish sqew/ dish centering on arm, which there is often no alignment mark.

If you get 5W and 0.8W and none of the east sats then you have maybe set the motor elevation to 53 or 37 when it should be 37 or 53 and compensated with dish declination. The dish elevation won't track then.

Alternatively the pole is crooked.

Re-read and check off all the instructions.

If you get 0.8W (1W) and 5W and not 13E or 5E, something is seriously back to front or out of alaignment.

snaps

Keep it simple to start:
MAKE SURE YOUR POLE IS DEAD VERTICAL AND STRAIGHT (Spirit level or plumb line)
then make sure your motor elevation is set to your lattitude
Make sure the dish is lined up square on the motor pole (Most dmotors have a line on the motors mount for your dish to line up square on)
Then enter your longitude and latitude position into your receivers motor settings.
GO TO ZERO in motor zero
Then select 5west satellite (Motor will turn very slightly)
then move whole motor (Not dish on motor pole) to approx where the sun is at midday in the sky. Look for signal from 5west. Once signal is gained to best. tighten the motors mounting bolts up. Adjust the DISH elevation to best signal and tighten up bolts, then skew LNB, but usually on a motorised dish this doesnt have to be done as the dish skews when arcing.

Any questions we are here to help and im sure we will get you up and running

fat-tony

Watty - any knowledge of suppliers of "T" brackets? - see my post #15 above.

f-t

watty

I get mine at the local Electrical Wholesale. They usually come as a T and a K in a choice of two lenghts (for deep eves). Use Short Arm. For BIG poles I use a pair of K.

Some of mine have 5m unguyed (gable) and 8m guyed (boundary wall) big poles with "aerials".

I can't remember what wind speed. Below force 8 anyway. My 3 dishes including 1.1m motor survived force 8 the other day.

mickger

snaps wrote: »

Keep it simple to start:
MAKE SURE YOUR POLE IS DEAD VERTICAL AND STRAIGHT (Spirit level or plumb line)
then make sure your motor elevation is set to your lattitude
Make sure the dish is lined up square on the motor pole (Most dmotors have a line on the motors mount for your dish to line up square on)
Then enter your longitude and latitude position into your receivers motor settings.
GO TO ZERO in motor zero
Then select 5west satellite (Motor will turn very slightly)
then move whole motor (Not dish on motor pole) to approx where the sun is at midday in the sky. Look for signal from 5west. Once signal is gained to best. tighten the motors mounting bolts up. Adjust the DISH elevation to best signal and tighten up bolts, then skew LNB, but usually on a motorised dish this doesnt have to be done as the dish skews when arcing.

Any questions we are here to help and im sure we will get you up and running

Done another bit of tweaking today and managed to get hotbird and 1W but not 16W. I checked the pole as best i could with the motor brackets on and its out of plumb by a small amount. So tomorrow i'm going to take the dish off the mount and get the pole exactly vertical and straight. Unfortunately this aint going to be easy and its not a T and K Bracket. I might end up have to get new T and K brackets and pole and mount it on that.
Watty what was the name of the Electrical supplier you bought the brackets from? Or where can i get these from?

watty

It was Electrical Factors in Limerick.

Look up golden pages for Electrical Wholesale/Contractors/ETC in your area and ring and ask.

My experience with wholesale is that any of them sell to anyone that pays money. (Usually Laser & Credit card accepted). TK brackets come as eaches, you won't have to buy a box of 50.

Cables and fittings etc they want to sell by drum or multipack.

mickger

watty wrote: »

It was Electrical Factors in Limerick.

Look up golden pages for Electrical Wholesale/Contractors/ETC in your area and ring and ask.

My experience with wholesale is that any of them sell to anyone that pays money. (Usually Laser & Credit card accepted). TK brackets come as eaches, you won't have to buy a box of 50.

Cables and fittings etc they want to sell by drum or multipack.

As a matter of interest how much did you pay for the brackets and also where did you get the pole? Same place?

snaps

sometimes if i put up a large dish on a L bracket, i put 2 supporting brackets on the top of the mount so both ends of the mount are supported against the wall.

watty

I bought some 20' steel poles from Heitons/Buckleys or some such place. They usually only have lightwieght MMDS/TV aerial poles in Electrical Wholesalers.

I have no idea of price.

mickger

Took down the dish this morning and checked pole which in fairness was fairly vertical and plumb. Just did a little tweak on it. Put the dish back up at true south and went to 5W and got no signal. Adjusted motor from east to west and the elevation and still got no signal. So as it stand now i have no signals on any Sats :mad: Do i need to reset the motor or anything? Spent all morning on it with no luck. Would it be a cable shorting as surely when i go to 5w with tweaking i would get a signal. Any advice would be great guys as this is doing my head in now.

snaps

no harm in checking all your connections with the receiver unplugged. Check your settings in the motor section. reset the motor (Usually a small pin hole underneath motor). Dont forget to send motor to zero (Goto 0) then select 5 west. Make sure motor elevation is set to you lattitude approx 52-54 (Mine is set to 53). My dish as a guide is elevated to 40degrees (Dish elevation not motor). for 5 west roughly aim the dish to a little east of where the sun is now.

mickger

snaps wrote: »

no harm in checking all your connections with the receiver unplugged. Check your settings in the motor section. reset the motor (Usually a small pin hole underneath motor). Dont forget to send motor to zero (Goto 0) then select 5 west. Make sure motor elevation is set to you lattitude approx 52-54 (Mine is set to 53). My dish as a guide is elevated to 40degrees (Dish elevation not motor). for 5 west roughly aim the dish to a little east of where the sun is now.

Will give that a go tomorrow morning hopefully i will get at least 1W back.

mickger

Got it working today when i changed back to the old lnb so will try the new lnb tomorrow and see if that works. Getting 28.2E and up to 8w so i'm happy to have all the sats i need. Thanks guys for all the advice.